NFL Week 11: Monday Night Football – Oakland vs Houston (Mexico City)

Oakland -5.5 vs Houston 46.5 (Mexico City)

Tuesday November 22, 12:30pm AEDT

Houston (6-3)

Houston jumped on Jacksonville with a pick six to begin the game last week and never looked back in their 24-21 victory. Despite the win they really weren’t that impressive. They did run for 181 yards at 5.5ypr but threw for just 92 yards at 3.3yps and overall gained just 4.5yppl, which is what Jacksonville averaged as well. Their touchdowns came on the interception return, a punt return that set them up inside the 10-yard line and one legitimate drive where a 45 yard run put them inside the five-yard line.

Oakland (7-2)

Oakland came out of the gates early and often on Sunday night in their easy and dominating victory over Denver 30-20. Oakland ran for 218 yards at 5.1ypr and held Denver to 2.8ypr and 33 yards. Denver out passed Oakland 6.8yps to 5.4yps and out gained Oakland 5.9yppl to 5.2yppl but Oakland ran the ball 31 more times. Denver threw the ball six more times to skew the final yppl numbers. Denver also had a 69-yard touchdown pass that was thrown behind the line of scrimmage that turned into a 69 yard run. Without that they threw for 5.2yps and 4.6yppl. Oakland won the turnover battle with a plus two.

Rosters

For Houston, RB Alfred Blue is out and WR Will Fuller will be a game time decision.

Oakland doesn’t currently have any significant injuries.

The Verdict

My numbers make Oakland only a two-point favourite in this game and project about 44 points. Houston qualifies in a negative situation that plays against teams winning as divisional dogs the weeks before. That situation is 57-24-4 and plays against the Texans here. This game also qualifies in an under situation, which is 246-164-5.

Not only has Houston not beaten a winning team on the road, they haven’t come close losing by 27 to a fourth string quarterback, 18 and 18 points. In those games they allowed 27 or more points in each game.

Oakland has scored at least 30 points in three straight games and in four of their last five games. They’ve done their scoring against good defences like Denver, Jacksonville and scored 28 against Baltimore. The only defence that has really shut them down is Kansas City who held them to 10 points. Oakland was in a bad spot in that game and I’ll chalk some of that up to a divisional opponent who knows the Raiders well. KC was coming off a bye that week too. This line seems a little high but Houston is capable of imploding at any moment so a double digit win by Oakland wouldn’t surprise me either.